Bathrooms' Long Trek

City in Slow-Pace Race to Replace Sandy-Wrecked Facilities

Before New Yorkers can answer the call of summer at city beaches on Memorial Day weekend, they will need somewhere to answer nature's call.

ENLARGE

The Wall Street Journal

Bathrooms and other beach infrastructure along the public sand on Staten Island, Coney Island and the Rockaways, like most other coastal structures, became wrecks under superstorm Sandy's floodwaters. With beach season now just a month away, city officials are racing to restore restrooms, lifeguard towers and maintenance sheds in time for the beaches to reopen.

The solution: bring prefabricated facilities to the boardwalks for about $2 million each.

ENLARGE

A rendering of the restroom facilities that will be transported to area beaches that were affected by Sandy.
NYC Office of The Mayor

But the unwieldy dimensions of these new buildings will turn their migration into a slow-motion race in which nearly three-dozen units will lumber to the city from a factory in Berwick, Pa. In total, the process will require three weeks of multi-state trips at speeds as low as 5 miles per hour, weaving through traffic, negotiating bridges and weaving around red tape.

"It's just going to take a long time," said Cristin Burtis, head of the Office of Citywide Event Coordination and Management.

The procession is set to begin Monday, she said, with heavy-duty trucks hauling the first two modular pods of steel, black locust and tile. The largest units measure 15 feet by 60 feet long and weigh up to 50 tons.

The cost of the entire project, including associated rebuilding of boardwalk and ramps to connect to the elevated new bathrooms, is projected to run $105 million, according to a spokesman for the Department of Design and Construction. The modular units will also house lifeguard stations and maintenance offices.

Ms. Burtis plans massive celebrations such as New Year's Eve, but coordinating the intricate movement of the imported beach buildings proved so complicated that city officials handed the task to her team.

A good deal of the difficulty comes from the mismatched state and municipal rules governing the movement of large structures over roadways.

To get to the city, state rules in New Jersey and New York mandate that travel only occur during daytime hours, Ms. Burtis said. Those rules are reversed at the city limits, where oversize hauls must move at night.

"I think the most challenging part is probably going to be the timing," she said. "And that's based on the complexity of how big these things are and how slow they are going to have to travel."

The traveling buildings will also be required to avoid some of the most direct routes, including the Belt Parkway and the New Jersey Turnpike.

If all goes to plan, the first two buildings will begin moving over the Goethals Bridge just after 10 p.m. Monday. From there, they will snake across surface streets to reach the West 8th Street beach at Coney Island.

"The thing I think is important to know is these buildings are not related to mobile homes, except...that they come by truck," said Jim Garrison, the architect whose firm designed them. "They're heavy steel buildings that are as good as—if not better than—what you'd get from ground-up construction."

To deliver completed structures in such a short time, he said, the only option was to go indoors. In the factory, where the buildings are still being assembled around the clock by DeLuxe Building Systems Inc., toilets and tiles can be put into place before reaching the beaches.

"This was purely based on time," said David Burney, commissioner of the city Department of Design and Construction. "We didn't do it because we thought it was cheaper, even if it is."

City officials decided late last year to use modular construction to replace the destroyed buildings at the beaches, in part to avoid building outside in the heart of winter. But getting the units into position has proved nearly as vexing.

The prefabricated buildings are leaving Pennsylvania on "low boy" tractor trailers, with extra axles and lowered beds designed to handle big loads. Those trailers, in turn, can only cross from New Jersey to Staten Island by completely closing the westbound lanes of the Goethals Bridge, moving one at a time over the span at a maximum speed of 5 mph, Ms. Burtis said.

After crossing into Brooklyn, each trailer will join with its own six-vehicle supporting caravan, including bucket trucks, tow trucks and police cruisers.

The first two bathrooms and their escorts will take a circuitous route through the borough to Brighton Beach, where plans call for using a military vehicle to tow the trailers out along fortified stretches of sand to the concrete pilings that will be their permanent homes. The tow trucks are included to move parked cars from the convoys' path, as well as helping the trailers maneuver tight turns.

The bucket trucks will be on hand to move traffic signals or power lines out of the way if they hang too low for the buildings to clear. That is a challenge that could grow larger in coming weeks, said Ms. Burtis, when further deliveries require the trucks to make their way over onto the Rockaway Peninsula.

Once in place, the buildings are intended to be permanent, and an upgrade over the aging restrooms they will replace.

Mr. Garrison, the architect, said each one features skylights and extensive natural ventilation, with solar panels on their roofs to generate power.

"The mayor wanted the beaches open by Memorial Day," Mr. Garrison said. "It's a herculean effort. It's wonderful that the city has moved so quickly."

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